<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

Someone on the listserv questionned wheather cattails have gluten, so I wrote to the horticulturalist who is the guru of my Maryland Master Gardener group.  (I'm just a volunteer, but this was her college major, and she's really an expert.)  Her response is as follows.  

If you're looking for interesting recipes, many gluten-free, including Sunny Savage's (host) recipes for cattails....check out Veria Living tv or Veria.com.  I'm not sure. It comes up both ways.  I get the channel on FIOS, and it no longer makes me startle when I hear them say something is gluten-free, because it's common on that channel...which came out in January, 2012.

The one warning Savage had was to make sure the cattails are from a non-polluted area.  They absorb pollutants, and you could get very sick if they're growing in polluted water and ground.  Just FYI.  Sunny Savage does her show in the wilds.  I'm not that adventuresome.  I have a hard enough time buying healthy food in the food stores!

Lin


Hi Lin,

Cattail does NOT belong to the same family as wheat. The Latin genus name for cattail is Typha. There are of course a bunch of different species. It belong to the Typhaceae family, not the Gramineae. You can eat almost any part of the cattail: hearts of the shoots, immature flower spikes and the pollen. None of the parts should contain gluten. I do not know about the rhizomes.

Cattail is native to Eurasia and South America and it is extremely invasive.



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